


Force of Nature

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Adventure, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Horizon: Zero Dawn Fusion, M/M, alternate universe - Horizon Zero Dawn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-22 23:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13775289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx had always heard stories about a strange tribe  from far beyond the Banuk territories, but he had never expected to meet them. One day, Noctis and his friends arrive in Nora lands and Nyx realises that the world is a much bigger place.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JazzRaft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/gifts).



There was very little news from the other tribes that filtered through Nora lands. What the Oseram traders and the Carja visitors carried with them tended towards the minimum— the stories and legends the Nora already knew, only from a different perspective. Stories of rich forests and warm wastelands, of a long lake dotted with islands that reflected the rising sun with a mirror calm in the morning and countless stars in the evening. The Oseram brought their inventions and tales of smoke and scrap and whole veins of twisted machines that haunted the dreams of the Nora children gathered around the campfires with their strange new toys. 

Nyx had grown up on all the same sorts of stories. His favourites coming from the Banuk, when they did deign to share their cold stories of stark survival and the sights beyond the glaciers and snowy peaks. When they welcomed a scrappy little Nora at their campfire, who didn’t shy away from their blue wires and reverent recreation of the machines fallen in the deep snows— left hallowed, hollow shells as the trinkets and totems were pulled out by shamans and scavengers alike.

He had learnt, around the settlements in the far northern reaches of the Nora territory, about the other tribes that lived well beyond the mountains. He learnt, while huddled in the snow with his friends, as the Banuk talked about how the Oseram had villages and outposts in the wide plains of alien lands— scattered little heaps and piles of rotted machine and bones of cities left by the Old Ones. Of stretches of grassland plains beyond the frozen mountains that moved like waves in the wind, where grazers and striders and scrappers wandered without a hunter in sight. He learnt about the people and tribes beyond Ban-Ur, who gathered in the skeletons of steel and concrete of the Old Ones’ cities, and who worshipped the moon just as the Carja favoured the sun. He heard them called ‘Lucians’, and their kingdom build on the rust and ruins at the edge of the world was named ‘Lucis’. 

Libertus had always said they were just stories. That they were meant to scare sensible people, like the Nora, away from the mountain roads and harsher lands not blessed by the Mother. That if the world even had an edge, who would want to live there? What manner of tribe would overlook what the Banuk called the ends of the earth? If even the Banuk themselves didn’t venture that far.

Nyx knew that the Seeker-Hero Aloy had never ventured that far in her travels, but he never stopped wondering about the sort of people who would build their homes in the graveyards of the fallen world that came before. 

Over time, the strange stories kept coming. First from the Banuk, then from the Oseram bribed by rare bits and pieces scavenged from the Nora hunts. The Carja gave up their own stories of the strange rival kingdom eventually, when Nyx was older and a brave and sitting on a guard duty on a summer afternoon. A trader and diplomat were more talkative in the noon sun when they had plenty to drink and plenty of ‘savages’ to impress with stories that were cheaper than silks and metals and secrets to farming. Nyx had listened then— to the ramblings of the drunk Carja— about the city shrouded in shadow and a ruled by a king who worshipped death. 

He was a bit disappointed when he finally saw these fabled people for himself and they seemed perfectly normal. The Banuk look stronger, the Carja looked more dignified. The Oseram were far friendlier. 

They came, like others, from some diplomatic mission in the Sundom that led the small group of young men into Nora lands out of curiosity. Drawn to the wilds of the Nora settlements and towns and long stretches of quiet road by the promise of a spectacle when the Proving started, when the Braves got restless and wanted to hunt, when the Oseram promised skilled hunters and better weapons they could improve upon. Guided to the heart of the Nora, Nyx’s own mother welcomed them with the threat to kill them if they were there to cause trouble. But they were given shelter and food and treated like other guests of some standing, even if they didn’t tend to ask a lot of questions.

They came months before the Proving, on the tails of the the Oseram traders in the warm spring winds. They came dressed in strange armours and clothes, crafted with the Carja silks and the Banuk furs and the scraps or trophies of whatever machines had been conquered along the way. They came in a small group, shadowed by the Nora suspicions, but welcomed by the Oseram flair and noise and fanfare. 

“They don’t look different,” Crowe had said when she saw them, when they were told that the Lucians were going to stay. At least for a short time. “Not like they could survive for long on their own.”

“Pelna and his people vouched for them,” Nyx shrugged, eyes still on the little group of strangers isolated by Nora distrust. They had gathered around a little fire of their own, had a little hut to shelter them, and were offered the basics of hospitality that could be spared. Their Oseram friends already dispersed into the village. “I don’t know. Looks can be deceiving.”

“Yeah, look at you.” Libertus slapped a hand against Nyx’s shoulder. “We going to just stare at them all night?”

With a smirk to his friend, Nyx gathered up the food from their own meal, and ignored the protests as he brought the tray over to the visitors. He didn’t know what he expected, really. A different language, maybe, or a touch of hostility at his intrusion. He may have expected Libertus to chase after him, and the talk around the Nora nearby to quiet down. He thought that approaching a new tribe like this might have the same ramifications of approaching the outcasts. He thought that the big guy might be the leader of their little group— the clear warrior with a handful of decorations from victories, beads and charms that could almost be familiar strung through hair and woven into his armour plates salvaged from what Nyx assumed were snapmaws and watchers. 

He didn’t expect the eyes of the visitors to turn from him to the little, pale Lucian with dark hair and blue eyes. The curious young man who looked like he could have fallen from a star, his own armour crafted from feathers of glinthawks and seemingly modelled after the kestral armour the Carja guards sometimes wore was being checked by careful hands for nicks and scratches in the firelight. The young man barely looked strong enough to draw a bow, let alone lead the strange little group. 

He didn’t expect the slight smile and grateful look as he offered the tray and took a seat next to the fire. 

“I’m Nyx.”

“A Nora Brave,” one of the group said, as if explaining to the others. 

“A Nora Brave,” Nyx agreed, offering a cup. “My mother was the one who threatened you.”

The cup was taken by the young leader of the group; “I’m Noctis. And this is Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto. Nice to meet you.”

Each one was pointed out in turn, and Nyx relaxed at the welcome. They had the same language, they could share food. They were human, at least. And from the talk around the Cradle, they were going to be staying for at least a few weeks, if not up to the Proving itself. 

“Nice to meet you.”

By virtue of his friendliness, Nyx was later deemed their babysitter. Not a single Nora was surprised when Nyx dragged his own friends into the mess with strangers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little scene

“Nope,” Noct said from his pile of blankets and furs, tucked as close to the little cooking fire at possible; “not happening.”

Nyx grinned at the sight, of Noct still mostly dressed— the adornments and armour shed for now, but the warm Banuk clothes wrapped as much around him as the rest of his little pile. They were only visiting the little settlement to the north of the Nora lands. They had only wandered that way in search of new sights to show off that might impress the Lucian visitor. 

Nyx remembered that the sunrises were beautiful on the snow and ice. 

Noct was far less impressed by the cold. 

“Just a peek.”

“No.”

“You do realise that you’ll need to leave that bed at some point?”

“Yeah, spring.”

“It is spring.”

It had been snowing when they arrived— Noct’s companions from home staying behind to be useful elsewhere on the hunting parties and with the braves. They had trudged through the start of what had promised to be more than just a light dusting on their search for the little settlement and outpost nestled in the mountains. The Banuk could be seen by their use of the blue oils from the machines in their lights; the eerie glow of the containers fastened to the makeshift posts guiding them as the sun set over the ice and reflected its muted light against the glacial stone of the mountain. The outpost had never really moved in all the years Nyx had been visiting. From one crevice to another, the warm little huts filling in space cut between the mountains, though never really finding a pass through to the harsh lands of Ban-Ur beyond. 

Nyx peeled back the blankets inch by inch, ignoring the glare it earned him and the futile tug to reclaim the warmth. “Come on, little star. Come watch the sunrise with me.”

“You Nora are all insane.”

“Only the best ones. Come on.”

He was rewarded with a plaintive groan and the pile moved. Noct pulled the warmest furs around his shoulders and let Nyx manhandle him to the door to watch the blue lights of the Banuk’s design give way to the sunlight spreading over the frozen lake below the camp. He pressed himself against his Nora host and glared at the world just waking up— the roads already buried beneath the snow, and everything still save for the badger snuffling its way towards the water. 

In the distance, branches cracked beneath the weight of the night’s blizzard, and the resulting heaps of snow sent roaming watchers to investigate. More than a foot had fallen in the night, and the sun glared over it as it started to rise. The glitter of the snow and ice mimicked the same steady pulse of light from the glinthawks settling on the far side of the lake— easy prey for the Banuk hunters making their way to an outcrop of stone to assess the machines. 

Warm winds from the still-green grasslands to the south, from the Cradle, promised an easier walk home once they found the roads again. Nyx smiled as he watched the other tribe set to work on their hunts, already alert before the world finished waking. He smiled as he thought of Noct, wrapped in the pale blues of the other tribe, feeling no attachment to the clothing he arrived with save for the armour fashioned from bent and bound glinthawk feathers. The colour wasn’t suited to him, but Nyx wasn’t going to complain about the way it made the young man step close and bury his hands in the furred cloak Nyx had taken to wearing. 

“What do you think?”

“I don’t like snow.”

“But?”

“But it’s pretty.”

“Knew you’d like it.”

“I’d like it a lot more if it was warm.”

Nyx chuckled and pulled Noct to his feet, shoving him out and into the snow. The campfire wasn’t far, and there was bound to be food they could share. “How did you even get here from your lands?”

“With a lot of complaining. Ask Ignis.”

“I don’t think I need to.”


End file.
